Houston Texans have a surprising ranking on the FanSided 250

The Houston Texans ranked surprisingly high on the FanSided 250, the mother of all rankings of fandoms. How did they stack up? Let’s look into it.

The Houston Texans are just a few weeks from closing out the season and their playoff chances are still too close to call with a tight divisional race between them and the Tennessee Titans, their opponent on the road tomorrow afternoon.

Nonetheless, while we’re talking about them, FanSided recently ranked the Top 250 fandoms in the world — we call it the FanSided 250 — and the Houston Texans did make the cut, which was expected but how high they ranked is quite surprising.

How is it decided which fandom makes the cut?  What FanSided does is conduct a tabulation that combines a fan vote, search rank and social media presence to all combine on which fanbase stands out the most.

Now that we’ve confirmed that the Houston Texans are on the list, as I’ve said I’m quite surprised as far as their ranking.

This team has only been around for the past 17 years, with the days of the old Luv Ya Blue Houston Oiler days far behind them in the Bayou City.  I remember them and I do vividly recall the heartbreak and the emptiness this city had when they didn’t have a football for five years.

But then came along the late Bob McNair, who was more than willing to pay up — $700 million at the time — to bring football back to Houston to take part in its first season back in 2002.

I remember when Harris County Sports Authority had launched a Web site back in the late 90s where you could track updates on the progress of the franchise’s birth and it was ultimately where

I was able to see what the new name of the franchise along with the unveiling of the iconic logo shaped in the form of a bull, accentuated with Deep Steel Blue, Liberty White and Battle Red.  I even recall there being a Webcam on one of the pages where you could look at how the construction was going on what is now NRG Stadium.

I was in high school and the World Wide Web was still something that was finding its way before becoming a part of our everyday lives, which can be said about most Houstonians that have a fixation with this franchise.

However, up until about 2011, the nuances of each season have been largely forgettable but since then, the team has qualified for the postseason for five out of the last nine seasons since then.

This has resulted in the Houston Texans being ranked 177th in the FanSided 250 and 19th among NFL teams within that realm.

But no matter what, Andre Johnson and Arian Foster continued to lurk among the shadows of obscurity and J.J. Watt blew the top when the team drafted him in the first round in that same year.

The team has never had a staid situation with the quarterback position with each man tapped for the job just trying to do everything they can to be a stop-gap and playing not to lose their position.

David Carr, Matt Schaub, even Brock Osweiler to a certain extent all encompassed that trait but when the team finally made a significant investment in a QB back in 2017 on Deshaun Watson, that’s when the interest in this franchise skyrocketed to another level.  We were already introduced to him after he had won the college football national championship with the Clemson Tigers but with him being a part of the Houston Texans, I think we all have gotten to know him on a more upfront-and-personal level, watching him any given Sunday doing work.

Watson transcends football with his unique, thirsty-to-make-plays style and we’re all chomping at the bit to see what he’ll do next to help this team win football games.

The Houston Texans have remained committed to their coaches as well with Dom Capers, Gary Kubiak and Bill O’Brien being the only men to hold that title in the franchise’s history.  As always, it’s debatable if O’Brien is the guy to lead this team to a Super Bowl but his no-nonsense style of coaching does ingratiate itself to the win-loss column, to which he has only had one losing season in his near six seasons of being at the helm.

Kubiak would be criticized for being too much a player’s coach and most of us know that O’Brien faces that notion from 180 degrees.  Although he came in with his guns-a-blazing back in 2014, he has softened up his rigidness — albeit slightly — over the years to stay in tune with what works best with players.

But why am I surprised about that ranking?  I’m not a season-ticket holder but I’ve been to a countless amount of games over the years, fans show up late and leave early, especially if they aren’t doing well and it just feels that a Houston Texans‘ game is a happening then an actual game that’s being played out on the gridiron.

Being at NRG Stadium is a place to see and to be seen at and I just feel that there are a lot of fans that view Sunday afternoons in that fashion.

Despite all of that, the Houston Texans have SOLD OUT EVERY GAME since their inception at the turn of the 21st century, which is a hard-to-beat track record that many sports franchises dream of achieving.

The product hasn’t always been that great but fans keep on buying what they’re selling because they know what the alternative is and it’s not something they’re willing to deal with once again like those dreadful years from 1997-02.  Just like most of Texas, Houstonians love their football and it’s a notion that cannot be separated from one another.

Yes, there are die-hard fans.  I’m one of them and you probably are if you’re reading this.  Hell, I’m taking time out of my life to write this to pour my heart out about the state of the franchise so you shouldn’t question my fandom here.

But our fanbase pales in comparison of long-time, established fanbases like the Green Bay Packers, Chicago Bears, New York Giants and the Chicago Bears.  Will they get there one day?  Possibly.  I know that I’ll likely be an old man when that happens and I hope that the franchise will have won multiple Super Bowls by then.

Let’s hope for the best.

How did the Houston Texans rank among other fandoms within the FanSided 250?  Take a look here and compare.